Goatweed Leafwing

Goatweed leafwing - now you see it......

..now you don't - Paul Prappas

One of my favorite butterflies is the goatweed leafwing, aka goatweed emperor, Anaea andria.  It overwinters as the adult form, hiding under loose bark or other shelters, emerging on the occasional 50 degree winter day to fly around, startling a hiker with its bright orange wings.  Follow it until it lands and it  disappears, folding up its wings to look like all the other dead leaves.  That is the same strategy that a cottontail rabbit uses, flashing its white tail until the freeze pose with its tail tucked out of sight, just another brown thing in the brown winter woods.

"Gee whiz, it really smelled dead!" -  Chris Barnhart

The adult butterfly doesn't visit flowers but gets its nutrition from decaying fruit and animal droppings.  It does make exceptions for blossoms such as Ptelia trifoliata and the pawpaw pictured above.  These flowers are usually pollinated by flies and beetles, attracted by their odor of dead animals!

Building a frass chain - Chris Barnhart

Chris Barnhart introduced me to the caterpillars.  This includes building rigid frass chains that they can climb onto for protection away from the leaf.  (Frass = insect poop to those of us perpetual 5th graders.) 

I was going to write about the goatweed's life-cycle until Chris sent me his link to his incredible photographic essay.  It shows all the stages such as their rolled-leaf shelters including a video of a caterpillar backing into one like a semi-truck at a mall.  Go straight to this link.

Visit the Bill Roston Butterfly House at  the Springfield Botanical Gardens where you may get to see one of these offspring on the wing.

Butterflies in Winter

Last February on an unseasonably warm day, I was startled to see an orange butterfly fluttering by me.  I watched it seemed to settle on the branch of a tree, but couldn't find it.  One month later while unsuccessfully trying to burn our glade, another one floated by.  Mike Skinner, from the Missouri Department of Conservation, identified it as a Goatweed butterfly, Anaea andria Scudder.
 
I probably missed it the first time by looking for its brighter orange upper wing surface.  When it folds its wings, the visible undersides look just like a dry leaf, thus its other name, Goatweed Leafwing.Mike explained that it was commonly seen on warm winter days.  To quote him from a January News-Leader article, "Species such as the Mourning Cloak and Goat Weed butterfly spend the winter as adults underneath loose tree bark.  Being cold-blooded, they actually reflect what the outside temperature is.  In fact, on really warm days in winter or early Spring, you can sometimes see them out for a spell."  These and the Mourning Cloaks and anglewings (Commas and Questionmarks) all overwinter as adults.

Goatweeds frequently will light on tree and shrub branches and do not get nourishment from flowers.  Unlike many other butterflies, they tend to play dead when captured.  Their larvae mimic twigs and attach fecal material to their back with their silk, probably to discourage predators.  More on this butterfly can be found at Butterflies and Moths of North America.
 Now that spring is just around the corner (yeah, right)- it is time to start thinking about butterflies.  The Butterfly House created by Bill Roston and Friends of the Garden will be opening again in late spring at Close Memorial Park on Scenic.  In addition to the Butterfly Festival July 24th and 25th, the house will be open weekdays at scheduled times.  Stocked with only native Missouri butterflies, it gives the public a chance to see all four stages of selected butterflies and moths living on native plants.

Why talk about this in February?  The Butterfly House will be open more hours this year to accommodate visitors to the Gardens throughout the season.  We need volunteers to serve as docents in the house.  Training sessions will begin in April and will include identification of common butterflies and caterpillars and their life cycles.  There are guides and pictures in the house to help, so you don't have to be an entomologist or even know a butterfly from a moth to serve as a docent.

If you would enjoy seeing children's eyes light up as they see a butterfly land on a leaf to deposit eggs or watch a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis, this opportunity is for you.  Email me at rkipfer@sbcglobal.net to get on the list. 

I'll Drink to That

Long distance feeding - proboscis of the convolvulus hawk-moth_(Agrius convolvuli)

Snail proboscis - Wikipedia

The last blog discussed the anatomy of the incredible lepidopteran proboscis.  Before we go further, I need to point out some other species which have a proboscis.  Some other animals, including snails, as seen on the right, use long, prehensile proboscis for feeding on a dead fish.  Some other species have a proboscis used for function, beauty or just a good laugh.

Proboscis monkey - Wikipedia

In mammals the elephant trunk wins the function award but there are other famous contenders as well.  Consider Jimmy Durante, a comedian who made a career of poking fun at his nose as in his song Boys with the Proboscis.

Jimmy Durante - Wikipedia

Elephant seal  - Wikipedia

Great spangled fritillary on sweaty head

Some butterflies collect fluids that go beyond gross as described in Blood, Sweat and Tears.  Sweat feeding is not uncommon and some species like the hackberry emperor can be aggressive, landing repeatedly on sweaty surfaces even when brushed away.  I have had several land on me at the same time, evading my net by landing on my head.  Before this makes you feel special, they also feed on dung, mud puddles and animal urine.

Lachryphagy in the Peruvian Amazon  - Phil Torres from Mix

Tear‐feeding (lachryphagous) butterflies and moths can land on a larger animal and essentially puddle around its eye.  They poke their proboscis into the eye to stimulate tear production.  They usually feed on turtles, some mammals and crocodiles (yes, crocodile tears!).  Although lepidoptera don't harvest human tears, there are some bees that do.   "Bees go after the tears instead of sweat since they're 200 times richer in proteins than sweat."

Hematophagous (blood-feeding) moths may get their blood from a wounded surface or by actually piercing the skin.  Calyptra sp. in the Old World all pierce the skin of fruit and 10 species will pierce even tough mammalian skin. Their specialized proboscis has a combination of erectile barbs and tear‐shaped hooks on each galea (half of the proboscis).  "The insect rocks the proboscis from one side to the other, applying pressure until it pierces the skin. It then uses a rocking head motion to drill the tube deeper into the skin. The blood pressure of the victim supplies power to raise hooks on the proboscis to ensure the insect is not easily detached."

Goatweed leafwing butterfly competing with paper wasps - CB

Five Comma Butteflies on a racoon carcass

Goatweed leafwing butterflies are flying in March.  They overwinter as adults, hiding under loose bark, like on shagbark hickory, and emerging on warm days looking to collect sap.  Chris Barnhart describes their thick proboscis that can feed on fruit and they will stick it right under the mandibles of paper wasps which are competing for the same food as in his photograph above.

Happy hour on the deck - Chris Barnhart

Although they may use their wings to bat away competitors, butterflies can also become quite congenial in a puddle of the right kind of fluid as seen above.  This was sap leaking from several spots on a tree and probably fermenting from a yeast infection.  It was a popular hangout for several weeks.  If only all of our human communities could get along like this!

Snout Butterfly

You don't have to travel to find interesting insects, especially if you have native plants in your yard.  Barb's pollinator plantings paid off for me by attracting this American Snout butterfly which was showing off his Jimmy Durante nose-like snout.  In Jimmy's case, it was commonly referred to as a large nose or proboscis. 

Just a flash of orange but bright in flight - REK

Goatweed Leafwing - Lois Stacey CC

The Snout, Libytheana-carinenta, resembles a Goatweed Leafwing in flight with its dorsal wings flashing orange but disappearing into a dull gray dead leaf color when folded up at rest.  The snout adds to the deception, looking like a dried leaf petiole.

While not terribly common, you are likely to see Snouts when they land on you, presumably to collect sweat from your skin.  The pointed snout is threatening at first glance and is totally harmless.  It is actually a pair of greatly enlarged palpi which are scent detectors (olfactory), essentially a butterfly nose.  While they don't inhale (like Bill Clinton?) they are well positioned to detect food resources or the pheromones of females.

Coiled proboscis -  M.J. Raupp

Butterflies do have a proboscis and it is an example of practical design.  It begins as a pair of long C-shaped channels which come together to create a tube.  It is carried curled up and extended to slurp up nutrients.  Incredibly, if it is clogged it can come apart for cleaning, then come back together.*  Scientists are trying to duplicate this mechanism as described in this video.

Butterflies also have sensory detectors on their antennae, thorax, abdomen and legs.  These likely are used to detect food such as nectar as well as urine, feces, rotting fruit and dead animals.  No one has accused butterflies of having "good taste" as we know it.

* An explanation of butterfly anatomy is at Learnaboutbutterflies.com/Anatomy

 

Butterfly Season

Rude Winter Awakening

Spring is just around the corner (Yeah, right!), so it is time to start thinking about butterflies.*  Actually I saw my first butterfly of 2011 the first week of January.  I was chainsawing firewood and as I was cutting through a downed log, a slab of bark fell off and I saw a glimpse of orange.  Looking at the duff on the forest floor I found the little guy at the right.  Can you imagine waking up after several months to a chainsaw passing through your log?

Dorsal View- Wikimedia

Notice the small white "comma" on its dull underwing that identifies it as a Gray Comma (Polygonia progne).  It is one of a number of butterflies which over-winter as adults.  Others species that hibernate as adult butterflies include the Goatweed Leafwing, Mourning Cloak, Question Mark, and Eastern Comma.  They hide out under loose bark on trees or in log piles and under shingles of buildings. If you see a butterfly flutter by on a warm winter day, it isn't a hallucination.  They enjoy a break in the weather as much as we do.

This was the first Gray Comma I have found. We commonly find Eastern Comma butterflies which have a wider variety of host plants. All of these overwintering butterflies rarely feed on flower nectar, preferring tree sap, rotting fruit and animal droppings.

There is more about Goatweed Leafwing butterflies in this February 2010 blog.
There is a list of butterfly resources on the right under Pages- Resources.
* Looking back at the February blog I discovered that I wrote the same opening sentence!  So much for originality.

January Phenology

January - Late season frost flower

Phenology - the scientific study of periodic biological phenomena

It is hard to get as excited about nature during a cold front with single digit wind chills.  Much of our observations are out the patio door, following the competition at our bird and squirrel feeders.  When the thermometer reaches 30, the wind dies down and the sun comes out, there is firewood to cut and cabin fever to burn up by getting out in the woods.

Frost flowers are largest with the first few freezing nights but the Verbesina virginica continues to "blossom" into the new year around the base of the plant as long as the roots haven't frozen.  I was surprised to see them recur vigorously with the last cold snap.  Late season frost flowers are frequently delicate strands rather than the wider ribbons of December.  Hoar frost and ice on the creek reward us if we get out before the sun hits it.

Although deer season wraps up this week, there is still the sport of hunting antler sheds.  With the leaves off the shrubs and trees, much more ground is visible, so the pale sheds stand out against the leaf litter.  Field and Stream lists 10 Ways to Become a Better Shed Hunter, a good way to get started.

Mourning cloak -  David A. Dawson, Master Naturalist

On warm winter days (remember those?) be on the lookout for the butterflies of winter.  Mourning cloak, comma, question mark and goatweed leafwing species emerge from under the bark, flying to stretch their wings and feast on tree sap and dung.  OK, feast may be too strong a word to link with dung, but at least they make a living.

For the botanically inclined, there is still plenty to see.  With the leaves off, the giant sycamores along the creek stand out like white ghosts against the sky.  They will occasionally serve as a perch for a bald eagle.


The bright red berries of deciduous holly, aka possumhaw (Ilex decidua) are scattered along the creek bottom, a welcome dash of color.  The berries are not  preferred by birds and small mammals, but since they persist in good condition through the winter, they serve as a source of emergency food.

WAHOO! They are out.

Our personal favorite is the wahoo, Euonymus atropurpureus.  Its fruit first appears as dark pink and four-lobed before splitting open to expose 4 arils, the fleshy covering of the seeds.  This fruit again isn't favored by birds - it is actually toxic to humans, so it persists through much of the winter before northern flickers, brown thrashers, catbirds, eastern bluebirds, and cardinals pick them off when other food sources dry up.  In addition to providing winter color, it gives up a reason to yell "WAHOO!" on a cold winter walk.

Oldfield Mystery

Animal or plant?- Click to enlarge

Our friend Georgia sent me this picture from her picnic table in Oldfield.  As a game of Stump the Master Naturalist, it was like going one-on-one with Jeremy Lin, not much of a contest.  I was pretty sure it wasn't mineral but beyond that I was out of my depth.

Chris Barnhart to the rescue!

"It’s a Crowned Slug Caterpillar, Isa textula.  The whole family Limacodidae has the most amazing caterpillars.  It would be great if we could raise some of these for the Butterfly House - they feed on oak."

Adult Moth- UGA 1430099

This dramatic larva becomes a rather generic looking moth, the Crowned Slug Moth or Skiff Moth, Isa textula.  The caterpillar feeds on trees such as oak, cherry, maple, and elm.  Don't let the soft fluffy appearance fool you.  Just like many other caterpillars, these are stinging spines and hairs, so if you plan to bring one to the Butterfly House, use a no-touch technique.

"First Butterfly of 2012"- Kevin Firth

Butterfly season will be upon us soon.  We are already seeing more butterflies of winter such as the Goatweed Leafwings which spend the cold nights as adults, tucked under loose tree bark.  Like some of us, Kevin Firth's Mourning Cloak to the right seemed to enjoy flitting about on a warm day.

Also warming up are the plans for the Bill Roston Butterfly House this year. If you are interested in helping out, a volunteer orientation session is scheduled for April 18th, 5:30 or April 21st, 9:30. Contact number is the Botanical Center, 417-891-1515.

June Phenology

Bluebird chicks- REK

June is bustin' out all over, accompanied and everything seems to be reproducing.  Male gold finch, and cardinals are in their brightest finery and the woodpeckers are feeding their young on nearby branches.  The first bluebirds have hatched and their parents are negotiating another nesting.  They likely will start a third and final family before the month ends.

Red fox  MDC

Young squirrels are everywhere, darting around in their new found freedom.  Little baby rabbits, showing more cute than smarts, are appearing along the lane, unaware yet of the dangers of wheels.  They need to be careful because foxes are also out, teaching their young kits to hunt.  Your chances of watching a family of foxes is far greater in town as they have adapted to civilization.  We have seen one twice in 18 years at the creek while urban friends watch them regularly in their back yards!

Fawn on a steep slope- REK

We have seen a lot of little spotted fawns the last week.  They are beyond the wobbly spindly legged stage now and able to run and climb but frequently are uncertain on where to head.  When we unwittingly startle them with a vehicle, they jump around in all directions, then bolt away.  Sometimes it is in a different direction from where the mother went, but she will be back soon to scold it about crossing the road.

Great spangled fritillary - Barnhart

Great spangled fritillaries are starting to reappear in large numbers, replacing the goatweed leafwings as the predominate orange butterfly of summer.  Tiny pearl crescents flutter through the grass and weeds, joined by wood satyrs and their cousins, the skippers.  Yesterday the brown and tan hackberry emperors were circling our heads.  They are drawn to humans for our sweat.

Ebony jewelwing - Joe Motto

Ebony jewelwings start appearing along the creek.  They tend to hunt from perches on low lying shrubs, their black wings held high above their backs.  Get close to one and in the right light you can make out the beautiful metallic green colors on its head.  Nearby dragonflies begin their restless patrolling, snatching the fresh mosquito hatches from the air.

Yucca flower and its moth - REK

The flowering spikes of yuccas shoot up three feet, seemingly over night.  Soon the white blossoms will open up, ready to host their pollinator, the yucca moth.   Finding this little white moth, which the yucca requires to reproduce, demands patient inspection of all the white flowers but is worth the effort.

WOLF Grasshoppers

The WOLF class field trip to Bull Creek last week had us talking about riparian tree identification and why trees are important.  As fascinating as I am sure the 5th graders found our insights, they couldn't compete with grasshoppers.  One hop and they were off and chasing them like a dog on a rabbit.

This drab gray grasshopper that fell prey to the quick WOLF hands is the Carolina grasshopper, Dissosteira carolina.  This is one of our largest grasshoppers and is commonly seen on bare ground like the gravel road we were walking.  Their slow and lazy flight may be mistaken for a butterfly.  They are easy to see in flight but are camouflaged on landing when its outline can disappear.



The brown grasshopper above especially caught my eye.  This is the autumn yellow-winged grasshopper, Arphia xanthoptera.  It may look drab but wait until it takes off.  It produces a crackling-snapping sound in flight called crepitation. The yellow-orange underwings flash brightly until it lands, then the grasshopper disappears in the ground colors.  Males may do this to attract females.

The flash of color is a trick similar to the goatweed leafwing butterfly when it lands and suddenly becomes a dead leaf.  Strangely enough, this bright color is an effective trick to fool predators.  The white tail of a cottontail rabbit or a deer works the same way.  Focus on the tail and when it suddenly freezes with its tail down, our eyes are still searching for the white flag.  Dirk Seemann's research on this trick is described here.

Postscript

This post prompted my buddy George Deatz to sent the picture above of a really cool grasshopper his daughter Leslie photographed in Nixa.  This is a  Pine Tree Spur-throat Grasshopper, considered rare by those hunting grasshopper but occasionally found by us amateurs wandering around with cameras.  Good shot, Leslie!  

==========
Thanks to Bugguide and Brandon Woo, an undergrad at Cornell and fellow bug nerd, I was able to get a quick identification of these species.  Bugguide volunteers monitor the photographs coming in for identification and make life much easier for me.

Another Sign of Spring

Spring Azure - REK

Spring Azure female - Bob Moul

We have been seeing lots of Goatweed Leafwing and Mourning Cloak butterflies over the last 3 warm weeks.  These are butterflies that overwinter as adults, sheltering under loose bark and coming out on warm days to stretch their wings and look for a snack of tree sap.  Last week a few anglewings also appeared but Saturday the most welcome sight was the appearance of Spring Azures flitting along the gravel drive in front of my sniffing terrier.


Spring Azures, Celastrina ladon, are to butterflies like the Harbinger of Spring, Erigenia bulbosa,  is to wildflowers, a tiny message from nature that spring is officially here regardless of what the calendar says.  Watching these two tiny creatures measuring less than an inch leading us down the drive I could almost hear them giggling in delight at the prospects ahead.

Violacaea form - Bob Moul

There are three identifiable forms (color patterns) among Spring Azures.  Violacea has scattered dark spots.  The marginata form has a dark band on the hindwing while lucia has dark borders on both wings and a prominent dark splotch in the middle of the hind wing.  While these names are catnip to the butterfly aficionado, to me they simply mean there is a confusing color variation in the species.

Marginata form with dark band on hindwing - Bob Moul

 

Lucia form - Tom Murray

Early spring is a delicate balancing act between flora and fauna.  No one knows for sure what prompts a shrub to bud at a certain time but early butterflies are gambling that it will occur in time for the eggs they are ready to deposit.  It is even a bigger gamble for these specimens as there doesn't seem to be a source of nectar in sight.

Zebra Swallowtail egg already perched on an unfolding leaf - REK

This delicate timing reminded me of an early April day two years ago when I walked through a dense pawpaw grove.  In all those trees there were only three buds that were open, but there glistened a yellow egg of a Zebra Swallowtail, whose caterpillar soon would munch on the tender leaf as it unfolded.  Timing is everything at this time of year.  How they do it without a calendar or weather forecast is another of nature's great mysteries.

Butterfly Season

As the temperatures gradually rise we are seeing the awakening of butterflies.  We have been seeing the goatweed leafwings and mourning cloaks occasionally throughout the winter and now they are everywhere.  The adults survive the winter by hiding under lose bark, emerging occasionally to collect tree sap.  Lately we are seeing a few tiger and zebra swallowtails that have emerged from their cozy winter chrysalis.

Zebra Swallowtail - Chris Barnhart

The zebra swallowtails, Protographium_marcellus, are flying low and rapidly, never appearing to land.  I don't know where they get all their energy this time of year as they are nectar feeders.  The flowers in bloom are tiny wildflowers and tree blossoms such as serviceberry that lack the landing space for the butterfly's feet.  In spite of this there are many flirting pairs and at least one has been successful.

Early pawpaw flowers

As we passed a pawpaw grove, I noticed the first signs of flower buds starting to open.  This is always a dicey time for the future fruit as a sudden frost will turn them all black and there will be few pawpaw to collect in the late summer.  I have noticed that the flower buds appear over a period of several weeks and some late ones may emerge after a freeze.

Checking a number of trees I found a few leaf buds opening and then felt the sudden thrill of discovery.  There, on a tiny unfolding leaf, sat a glistening pale green egg of a zebra swallowtail.
 
A female zebra swallowtail very carefully lays an individual egg on the underside of a leaf.  It seems to know that its offspring don't play well together so it lays only one egg per leaf.  When the zebra caterpillar emerges, it eats the egg case for energy, and then may eat neighboring eggs if they are available.  Since the only likely species on a pawpaw are zebras, it doesn't pay to invest the energy in eggs that will not survive.  It is interesting to contemplate how this trait evolved.

Additional thoughts on April 14th:
Tonight as the front has moved through the temperature is forecast to drop to 25 degrees, likely to kill both the pawpaw flowers and the egg we have been following to record its turn to orange in several days.  While being the first bud or egg may give the organism a head start, it comes with a price.  The zebras are like to continue laying eggs.  Whether the pawpaw produces more flower buds is the next question and I am guessing that we won't have pawpaw fruit again this year.